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The police blitz aimed at witnesses planning to testify at Kincardine radioactive waste hearings has reached across the border to Ohio.

Critics fear that radioactive material from a proposed dump that would store radioactive material from the Bruce Power nuclear generating station in Kincardine, Ont., pictured in 2003, will leak into the Great Lakes. (J.P. MOCZULSKI / The Canadian Press file photo)

The Ontario Provincial Police blitz aimed at witnesses planning to testify at hearings into a proposed Kincardine nuclear waste dump has reached across the border.

Toledo, Ohio resident Michael Leonardi says he received a phone call at home from the OPP’s provincial liaison team asking about his scheduled appearance before the federal review panel looking into plans to bury low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste along Ontario’s Lake Huron shoreline.

In particular, police wanted to know if any protests were planned, he said.

“The officer was very nice,” Leonardi, a member of the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, told me Sunday. “He said there was some possibility that organizations like Greenpeace might demonstrate and that police didn’t want any fatalities.”

And yes, Leonardi insists that the word used was “fatalities.”

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As the Star reported Saturday, local opponents of the scheme — and at least one supporter — have been visited by officers at their homes and asked similar questions.

But until now, it wasn’t clear whether the police operations stretched into the U.S.

Leonardi said he knows of other Americans planning to testify who were also contacted by the OPP.

Many Americans, including a majority of Michigan state senators oppose Ontario Power Generation’s plan to bury nuclear waste beside Lake Huron.

One of those senators, Hoon-Yung Hopgood, is scheduled to testify at the Kincardine hearings next week. I couldn’t reach him Sunday to find out if the OPP had quizzed him about his protest plans.

Critics fear that radioactive material from the dump will leak into the Great Lakes. While OPG insists its scheme is safe, the government utility does acknowledge that some waste will remain radioactive for about 100,000 years.

That there are opposing views over the planned dump is not unusual. Nuclear issues are always contentious. So far no one has come up with a foolproof plan for disposing of radioactive nuclear waste.

What is unusual, however, is the heightened police interest in those planning to merely testify at open, public hearings.

Many police forces deploy squads to head off trouble before it starts. Const. Darryl Campbell, of the OPP’s Kincardine detachment, said the OPP is “into building relationships.”

But these police squads usually concentrate on groups planning large-scale demonstrations.

If protesters are planning a march through, say, downtown Toronto, police will often work with organizers in order to direct traffic at key intersections.

But police don’t usually contact every individual person planning to take part in a planned march. And they certainly don’t usually contact every witness scheduled to appear before a public tribunal.

Leonardi said he has testified at Ontario nuclear hearings before. But this is the first time he’s been vetted by police ahead of time.

“I was just kind of surprised,” he said. “The guy was nice enough on his own. But I couldn’t help but think the call was meant to deter me from testifying.”

He said his real motive in speaking to the inquiry stems from the fact that his family owns a cottage on Lake Huron about 100 kilometres south of Kincardine.

Exactly why is there such a police interest in those appearing before this particular federal panel remains a mystery.

The three-member environmental assessment panel says it didn’t ask police to question those appearing before it. The panel won’t even provide the OPP with the addresses or phone numbers of witnesses, according to spokeswoman Lucille Jamault.

Ontario Power Generation says it didn’t ask the police to get involved. But OPG spokesman Neal Kelly did finger unspecified local municipalities and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (which, along with the federal environment ministry, is holding the hearings) for requesting a high level of OPP “engagement.”

Meanwhile, the police interviews continue. Jutta Splettstoesser, who lives in Kincardine but works at her nearby family farm, said she and her husband were both contacted by the OPP about their plans to testify.

Did she feel intimidated? “No. I see police a lot in the educational work I do,” said Splettstoesser, an environmental activist.

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